Players to Lovers (4 Book Collection)

by Ketley Allison

My breath mists out in frigid puffs. I’m gasping like I’m going to cry. But I don’t bust out tears. I don’t think back.

  Don’t look back.

  I heave off the wall with a roar and continue my trek down the avenue.

  8

  Astor

  I say my goodbyes to Locke and company soon after Ben, since Carter might murder me if I teach Lily one more curse word.

  I’ve also committed to an entire Saturday afternoon’s worth of work, considering Costello, Wine, & Cottone have indeed taken the Staten Island Slaughter case and they’ve requested all hands on deck while we sort out whether there’s enough evidence that our clients have to take a plea, or if we’re going to trial.

  Usually my favorite kind of case. Juicy, brutal, and riveting. Just the topic to get my mind off Mike’s sexcapades and Ben’s grouchiness, and basically men in general. I’m on this Earth to become a success, not trail after any guy’s coattails.

  Entering into the dreary NYC winter is exactly what you’d think it’s like. Cold, ice-driven, and colorless. I zip up my purple parka as I head to the subway and adjust my cream wool beanie that Locke says makes me look like an egg, since my hair disappears underneath it.

  Note to self: hair bobs and lobs are excellent in the spring and summer, but frickin’ suck when ice fingers get to trail along your bare neck in the dead of winter.

  I’m crunching along the sidewalk, already planning how to steal this case away from Mike, when I hear a roar unrelated to the city’s white noise in front of me.

  Pausing, I reach one hand into my jacket pocket for my cell. It sounds human, it sounds angry, and it’s male. I approach the alleyway with caution, ready with eyes forward to walk right by, a typical New Yorker’s response. Unless I spot a potential victim cowering underneath the roar, I’m not stopping.

  A form bursts out of the dark corridor the instant I’m passing it, nearly toppling me onto the icicles sticking out from the city sidewalk.

  “Jesus—”

  “Watch where you’re—”

  We’re both cut off by the other. Decide our death stares are better than our words.

  “Excuse me,” Ben says, turns his back, and starts walking.

  I’d let him go, if it weren’t for the bright red droplets in the snow he is leaving behind.

  “Ben,” I say, and when he doesn’t stop, I catch up to him. “Hey, Ben!”

  “What.”

  He says it with such visceral emotion, it gets caught between his teeth. I falter, one hand raised, about to touch him.

  “You’re bleeding,” I say flatly, then point to the blood trail.

  He fists his wounded hand, looks at it, and shrugs. “So?”

  “What happened back there?”

  Our breaths are coming out in cold puffs, and the longer we stand here, the more our organs will shut down, but I can’t help but be concerned. I only like hating Ben when he’s healthy and unwounded.

  “Nothing,” he answers. Predictably.

  “Ben—stop.” This time, I lay a hand on him when he starts to turn. “What’s going on? Why were you so weird at brunch? And why did you punch something so hard, you broke skin?”

  His eyelids shutter. “Why do you care?”

  “I don’t,” I say automatically, and he nods like he expects it. “But since my niece is very much in your life, I’d like to know you’re okay.”

  “I’m good enough,” he grunts, then shakes my arm off.

  “Fine then,” I say to his back.

  But swear when I realize where he’s going. Our destination is the same: the subway up ahead. Stomping my feet against the cold, I figure I can wait until he descends, then follow, and once down the stairs, swing in the opposite direction he’s standing on the platform.

  Problem is, its damn cold and there’s no coffee shop or other store to duck into in this direction to wait out the asshole.

  “Dammit,” I mutter, then start up the pace again, making sure I’m quiet so he doesn’t hear me trudging along behind him. I don’t glance at the droplets of blood he’s still leaving, like clues to an evil grandma’s gingerbread house.

  “I can feel you behind me, you know,” he says without turning.

  I adjust my tote, searching through it like I can’t hear him.

  At last, we reach the subway entrance, and he descends with lighter, quicker footsteps than expected, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets, but I suppose that’s why he’s the top wide receiver in the nation.

  The gate dings when he swipes his Metrocard, and mine follows soon after. I have plans to do a sharp U-turn as soon as I can, but Ben ruins everything when he halts and faces me.

  “What?” I say. “It’s not like I can help that we both need this train to get back into Manhattan.”

  Something ripples beneath his features, a combination of angst and fury. Though I’m used to him, have been utterly burned by him before, being under this kind of scrutiny makes me want to brace for anything he might sling at me.

  “You can’t take this case,” he says.

  Now that, more than anything, was the last thing I thought he’d say. “What case? The Staten Island Slaughters?”

  Deep lines crease around his mouth. “Yes. That one.”

  “Why not?”

  His frown carves deeper. “They look … like bad guys. I don’t want you mixing up with them.”

  I guffaw. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s dangerous, Astor. Let some other firm handle it.”

  It takes me a few seconds, but I’m trying to sort through all the reasons why Ben would even care what my firm is up to. The law bores him. My corporate job puts him to sleep, if he ever decides to think about it. But that would require him thinking about me, and we both know that doesn’t happen.

  “I’m just gonna go ahead and say no,” I say carefully.

  Ben sets his shoulders, and on him, it’s more like a gladiator readying to enter the arena. “Then I’m going to ensure it doesn’t come to your firm.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I cover my confusion with confrontation. “And what makes you think you have any power to do that?”

  “I’m famous,” he says offhand. “I can go to the press, side with the family’s survivors, blow this whole case so wide open, Australia will hear about it. I’ll taint the jury pool so bad, you guys won’t have a chance.”

  “How do you even know what tainting the jury…” I trail off, shaking my head. “What the hell, Ben? You realize this could make my career? Or—right, I forgot. You don’t give a shit about how well I do. But here’s the thing.” I step forward, so I’m close enough that I have to tip my chin up. “I don’t give a fuck what you want, never mind what you instruct. Go to the press, make this the most public scandal you can, my firm will still take this case.”

  His mouth twists, but his eyes … they’re searing into my retinas. “You’re making a huge mistake.”

  “Am I?” I ask. “Because before you said anything, I wasn’t about to fight for it. I was going to let Mike have it.”

  Lies, lies, complete lies, but I wasn’t about to let Ben stand here and dictate what I can and can’t do. My only option is to ask the supervising attorney to be on the case. There’s no guarantee I’d even be let in.

  “So, because I told you no, now you want to do it just to spite me?” Ben asks.

  “Consider it an added bonus.”

  He peels his lips back. “You are being such a—”

  “A what? Bitch? Say it, Ben.”

  “I was going to say fool. Don’t do this just to best me.”

  I laugh, but it isn’t filled with any mirth. “Typical. Of course you’d think this was entirely about you.”

  He lets out a frustrated growl, but there’s no one around to hear us. The MTA worker has long ditched their glass cubicle, and any potential passengers are smart by staying in their warm homes. But I’m not afraid to be alone with Ben. I’m angry.

  “It’s disgusting how quick you and your boytoy w
ant to jump on this trial. These people didn’t just die, Astor. They were tortured. Mercilessly. And here you are, wanting to make money off their killers.”

  My jaw drops. Actually unhinges.

  “How dare you say those things to me,” I manage to say.

  “Because they’re exactly what you’re aiming for right now. Look at the crime scene pictures, Astor, really look at them, and then tell me you’re surprised I think this about you.”

  I’m breathing—I think. I’d have to be, to continue to be alive and not pass out. It’s the way he’s perceiving me that’s making it hard. It was bad enough that he saw me as nothing six years ago, after touching all of me and coming up empty. But now, for him to stand here and regard my presence with disgust, it angers, because now I’m wishing he’d go back to lumping me in with how he feels about plain yogurt at room temperature.

  “I’d expect this from your guy, Mike,” he continues, and I use this time to collect the pieces of my heart and hide them better, “since I often get him confused with a gecko, but you? You?”

  Finally, it hits. “This is about Mike, isn’t it? Why do you hate him so much? Why are you refusing to let me be happy?”

  The last part … oh, God, I didn’t mean to say it. Ben’s eyelids twitch like he doesn’t want to hear it.

  “I don’t hate that douchebag,” Ben says. “I’d actually have to feel something for him to hate him. I’m trying to protect you. To prevent you from turning into—”

  “Except, you’d have to feel something in order to want to protect me,” I throw back, then point at his chest. “I don’t know what your game is or why you want to paint me as some bloodsucking lawyer, other than to improve your all-American image somehow. Be the face of conquering tragedy. If anything’s despicable, it’s you, trying to profit off this family’s trauma. I’m in this because it’s my job, it’s called justice, and everyone deserves a fair trial, innocent or guilty. Unless you’d prefer to go back to mob lynching?”

  Ben thins his lips. My poking him doesn’t throw him off balance in the least.

  “I know it’s hard to avoid each other, considering your Locke’s best friend,” I continue, “but it should be easy to keep your nose out of my business.”

  I give him one last shove, and he lets me throw him back, just slightly.

  “Stay out of my life, Ben!” I say, and I’m shocked to feel my eyes go hot.

  He says nothing as I back away, and when I turn on my heel, I repeat in a voice filled with desolate grit, “Stay out of my fucking life.”

  The incoming roar of the train, and the accompanying hot wind through the tunnel, blows anything Ben might’ve wanted to respond with well away from my ears.

  I don’t turn back as the train rumbles to a stop on its tracks.

  I don’t look at him as the doors slide open and start my travels far away from Ben.

  9

  Ben

  Damn, Astor looks good.

  Who’s allowed to be sexy in a purple sleeping bag and the wooliest hat this south of a Mammoth? It’s not fresh wool, either. It’s pilled, and pieces of fluff stick out in every direction, creating a lopsided halo backlit by flickering, dying subway platform lights.

  It’s what I focus on as words vomit out of my mouth. Desperate ones, syllables guaranteed to cut and slice and dice. Anything to get her away from this case. I’ll say whatever it takes to make her second guess her decision to open that file.

  I should’ve known it would only make her sharpen her fangs.

  Astor’s cheeks have given her away. They’ve bloomed pink, twin circles of passion, and she’s doing her best to cut me at the knees.

  Even though I’ve cut her down first.

  I know what my words have done. Disgust. Shame. Mistake.

  All meanings I’ve made her understand before. And I did it purposefully. Used them shamefully because I knew they’d wound the most. All utilized instead of giving her the truth.

  Worth it. It’s all worth it, Donahue.

  When she shoves me, when Astor disguises her distress with her own verbal arrows and walks away, I don’t stop her.

  All signs of successfully chipping away at Astor Hayes.

  I use that knowledge, the well of wisdom I didn’t earn from six years ago, to my advantage, like a play on the field. Something was already going on with her at brunch, making it too easy to punch through her weakened glass and scatter some shards across a subway platform.

  So, when she doesn’t look back at me as she boards the same train I do, ensuring she’s at least four cars away from mine, I don’t blame her.

  And I don’t think I’ve convinced her of anything. But failure isn’t in my DNA, so I’m gonna keep fucking trying.

  I have to pray, to whatever gods are listening—Atlas, Achilles, God—that Astor doesn’t think too much about the little boy in the pictures.

  And I have to believe, with all that makes me into Ben Donahue, that the people that came after me and my family, won’t come after her if she fails in proving them not guilty.

  The problem with the subway is that it’s public.

  I’m assailed almost as soon as eyeballs hit my face, then go to their phones. The good ol’ days of asking for autographs are long gone, Instead, fans shove phone cameras at your nose and make sure the flash is on.

  Other, more intrepid ones, throw an arm around you, catch a selfie, and don’t even say hello.

  I get all three.

  “Yo, Donahue, you rock!”

  “Sorry about the playoffs, man. You were robbed.”

  “Your fucking quarterback is a limpdick.”

  “Go, Jets!”

  I sneer at the last parting shot before I step off the train and into the anonymity of the TriBeCa sidewalk. I’m supposed to meet Ash at a location he won’t tell me the name of, only the address, but I’m more feeling the gym at this point. Get out some aggression.

  My phone vibrates, and I slide it out of my coat pocket, groaning when I see who it is.

  Mom.

  It’s been a few days. No doubt she’s worried about me.

  I don’t call her my adoptive mom. She’s only Mom. Remembering my real mom is tough, considering she died when I was four. I wasn’t allowed to bring any pictures with me, either, so all I have are vague flashbacks of feeling warm against her chest, and the smell of gardenia.

  To this day, I don’t like the smell of gardenia.

  I’m told I was found crying over my mom’s blood-soaked body.

  My adoptive parents, my new parents, don’t have a clue about my past, either. I mean, my fuckin’ dumpster fire history was only made known to me when I was sixteen, and a guy in a suit pulled me aside at the school playground, informing me I may be “compromised.”

  Compromised. Like I knew what that meant.

  Aiden made sure I grasped the seriousness of my situation, grimly stating he didn’t want to do this, but I may have to leave with him that second, and never turn back.

  I thought he was full of shit. Wouldn’t you, if some Men in Black dude told you a secret universe existed where you were the victim of a violent drug cartel who was currently in the midst of figuring out who you were? I was always told I was adopted and that it was closed, meaning the birth parents didn’t want to be identified. Never did I get a whiff of the tragic circumstances that brought me to the Donahues. For all they knew, I was from an abusive family that burned me severely, forcing child services to step in. They were told my name was Ben, and that was all.

  I went home that day, was told I needed to pack a duffel bag, and if necessary, he would be there to pick me up in an hour. I was young, stupid, vulnerable. Scared. He showed me a badge and I figured him for real. I called the number he provided and asked for his badge number, and it matched. I raced past Mom and up the stairs, before she could see the tears in my eyes.

  Luckily, it never had to happen. Whatever was blowing the lid wide open in my identity was firmly shut.

  But that night
, my dad peered at me strangely. Held my gaze too long at the dinner table. And when I finished Mom’s famous pot roast, he said, “I love you, son.”

  Ronald Donahue doesn’t say things like that. He’s more one to express love through actions, in cheering for me at every game and talking me down when I’ve lost. Training with me, running with me, and outfitting our garage as a makeshift gym so I could do two-a-days whenever I wanted.

  Even Mom gave Dad the side-eye when he said that, but he patted her hand, said “I probably had too much of a nightcap,” and left it at that.

  But right then, I thought he might’ve known. About me.

  I like where I am. I love being Ben Donahue. Some decades-old case about parents I should love but don’t remember can’t take that away from me. There’s no way these murderers can find me. Aiden assured that any documentation about my identifiable burn marks are long buried and sealed shut.

  All I have to do, while this case goes on, is lay low.

  Astor.

  The name comes unbidden, and I shove it aside by answering Mom’s call. “Hey.”

  “Honey! I’ve been wondering where you’ve been.”

  “Sorry, Mom. I shoulda called as soon as the game was done, but I got caught up—”

  “Oh, it’s all right. I’ll forgive you if you come to dinner tonight.”

  “Ah, Mom…” Guilt makes me trail off. It’s been a day full of trials, and I’m looking forward to crashing tonight as soon as I finish up with Ash.

  But somehow, telling that to my mom doesn’t seem like a good enough excuse to ditch her for dinner.

  “It’s okay if you’re busy, honey. I miss you, though. So does Dad.”

  Her voice is overly bright, and I picture her clutching the landline to her face, a fire engine red phone she refuses to send to Goodwill, a near match to the blush on her cheeks. She always smells like Dior and has hair perfectly curled, coming across to strangers as more well-to-do than a middle class, stay-at-home mom.

  She’s the best, and I won’t let anyone forget it. She knew how to get rid of athlete’s foot by using apple cider vinegar, has the best brownie recipe, and stayed with me through a lot of tough, long nights, when I first moved in with them. To deny her now would be a complete disservice to how much she gave up to care for me, since before I arrived in her life, she had a career as a publicist.